Killing by remote control (disturbing image warning)

[LadyLockeout]

This popped up on my FB feed tonight. Does anyone have any idea where the image came from, or if anything on it is accurate? I don't have the slightest idea where to begin searching.

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q.../Terrorist.jpg

I have provided a link to the image instead of embedding, to further spare those who may not want to see the image of a dead child.

ETA: Also, is it real, or is it a movie still? I don't know much about the people of the middle east, so I can't tell if the child is even the right ethnicity.

[missy_pooh_1997]

alrighty then

[LadyLockeout]

That was more or less my response too.

I'd like to be able to say SOMETHING about it, but I don't know where to start. Verification seems like a reasonable first step.

ETA: Also, it makes me angry on many different levels.

[Troberg]

Without a source, it's hard to tell if it's real or not.

Is it plausible? Without a doubt. Drones (even more than most weapons of war) are not surgical precision tools, neither is military intelligence. They kill more or less indiscriminately.

[curlygirl]

Seems to be a real photo with some inaccurate info and a bunch of slacktivism thrown in. I'll start be verifying the image, someone else can check the "official data".

I found only a few copies of this photo out there. It looks like it has just recently hit facebook slacktivists and this blogger calls out one of those spreading the manure. *warning contains banner add of NSBSK/NSFW nature plus OP image

A similar image search brings up what looks like the same scene from a different angle here giving us a date and place. *warning graphic images and text of hate filled nature

It appears to be the aftermath of an Israeli air attack on a convoy of civilians leaving the town of Marwaheen, Lebanon on July 15 2006. Not sure of the reliability of this source. But this also potentially dodgy one does agree with the basic facts and corroborating image.

No images, but some news sources did cover the event in the UK and in the US. Once again I don't know the reputation of the sources.

A bunch of the websites seem to be connected to the information clearing house and or writer Robert Fisk working for the Independent.

BTW there are a whole bunch of worse images out there of kids in war or disaster zones. If you don't own industrial strength mind bleach or a strong constitution DO NOT under any circumstances google image search "dead child rubble"

[damian]

What point are they trying to make? That innocent people get killed in a war? As terrible as it is, it's not what I'd call "breaking news".

Please refresh my memory: Which President started that war?

[Woofer]

1. The title is Killing by Drones, so the implication is that drones are utterly impersonal because they operate completely on their own.*
2. The information purports to be official data, but there is no source listed.
3. The injury and death numbers, with children separated of course, is to further drive home (a) the horror of war and (b) the horrifically impersonal nature of these drones.**
4. The statistics comparing strike numbers for Bush and Obama clearly shows what a trigger-happy, child-killing, warmonger that Obama is when compared to Bush.
5. There is no mention of the type of drone or anything else related to the technology named in the title.


*Sarcasm.
**Because there is only one drone type.

[LadyLockeout]

I'm more interested in the source of the image. I don't tend to accept "facts and statistics" on inflammatory images as accurate. But if the image itself isn't even from the war they're claiming it to be from, I'd like to be able to refute it.

[crescent]

Originally Posted by damian

Please refresh my memory: Which President started that war?

Originally Posted by Woofer

4. The statistics comparing strike numbers for Bush and Obama clearly shows what a trigger-happy, child-killing, warmonger that Obama is when compared to Bush.

The people I know who post these sorts of things don't see it as a Bush vs. Obama kind of thing - they see it as proving that Obama is no different from Bush, just as warlike, or even more warlike. These are people who think both parties are much too conservative, they see little real difference between the parties.

So, my guess is that this comes from the far left, not the far right.

[fitz1980]

Originally Posted by crescent

So, my guess is that this comes from the far left, not the far right.

I've also seen it pop up on facebook from the Ron Paul types.

[Chloe]

Those people don't know what they are.

[GenYus234]

But they know what they are against.

[Chloe]

Yes. Limitations on freedom. (Caution: may not be applicable to women and gay men).

[UEL]

Wow. It only took 12 posts to turn this from war to gays and women. Is that a record?

Back to the OP, I've been to Afghanistan, and I fly "drones"**. It is not as inhuman as many people think. But, given what I have seen of Afghanistan first hand, and the footage I've seen of Pakistan and Iraq, this child is not from these regions. This child is not dressed according to the styles of dress where US unmanned aircraft operate.

As for the deaths of innocent people in "drone" attacks, I will say that given the amount of attacks that occur, very, very few result in unintended casualties. I know of a few, but these were less about the inhuman machine, or the politics of the leadership of the US, and more about the unfortunate and devastating unknowns that occur. It can be stated that "in war people die, sometimes the wrong people." It is true, but can also ring hollow to those people whose lives have been changed by the death of a loved one in war. The death of an innocent was foremost on my mind any time I called in a strike when I was there.

One other notion I wish to bring up surrounds the premise that flying an unmanned aircraft in a theatre of operations is like playing a video game. I want to emphasise that the only commonality that flying an unmanned aircraft to video games is the fact that both use computers and buttons. After that, they are two completely different activities.

The consequence of error with a video game is you lose a turn (or life, or xp or something). The consequence of error in flying can be catastrophic.

When playing a video game, the results on the ground are very predictable. The explosion will be contained, the effects minimalised. In real life, there are so many variables at play, sometimes your explosion is not powerful enough to destroy the target, or it is too powerful and it affects other structures.

But mostly, in video games, when you are looking at the ground, you know that it is make believe down there. In real life, when you are looking at Canadians (or Brits, or Aussies, or Americans, or any other friendlies) being dragged from an ambush, you know that this is all too real, and it is as frustrating as hell when you can't find the SOBs that set that ambush.

In short, video games have no stress. In real life unmanned aircraft, the stress may not be direct, but it sure is real.

**I hate that term. In the unmanned aircraft world, a drone is an aircraft that operates without any human interraction from launch to recovery. Right now, there are no operating drones out there. There are plenty of remotely piloted vehicles, or unmanned aerial vehicles (or systems), but no drones.

[CannonFodder]

I've called down a strike from a UAV. The situation was under human control during the entire evolution at no time did a 'drone' take over. I asked for the strike on the target, a human looking at the feed from the UAV confirmed my observation and the mission was fired. I observed the impact and we moved up to the scene of the strike immediately following. No indiscriminate trigger mad killing. Not a single injury outside the scope of the valid targeting.

[damian]

Exactly how much control does a President have over the armed forces? I know that he is Commander-In-Chief, but in reality, how much control does he wield?

[GenYus234]

Enough to where he could prohibit the use of UAV strikes if he thought it best. Of course that means more troops on the ground getting killed with IEDs (or a major change of operations).

[crescent]

During the Vietnam war, Johnson controlled the military to the point of reviewing and approving individual bombing targets - this was later criticized as being too controlling.

Obama had enough control to order a commando raid against Osama's compound, apparently against the advice of his military advisors who would have preferred just bombing it.

So, I think a president can have as much influence as he wants or makes an effort to have. Too much control can probably be just as bad as not enough control.

[jimmy101_again]

Originally Posted by crescent

Obama had enough control to order a commando raid against Osama's compound, apparently against the advice of his military advisers who would have preferred just bombing it.

Somewhat off topic but I kind of doubt his advisers really would have preferred to bomb the compound instead of sending in ground forces.
1. There would be a good chance the body of OBL wouldn't have been identified identifiable in the ruble.
2. Identifying the body was hugely important.
3. There would be little opportunity to collect documents, disk drives, recordings etc.

The Bush people had tried to make the point that OBL was irrelevant by the last half of the decade. Intel collected by the assault team seems to indicate that OBL was still pretty much in control.

[crescent]

Getting Bin Laden

The President’s military advisers were divided. Some supported a raid, some an airstrike, and others wanted to hold off until the intelligence improved. Robert Gates, the Secretary of Defense, was one of the most outspoken opponents of a helicopter assault. Gates reminded his colleagues that he had been in the Situation Room of the Carter White House when military officials presented Eagle Claw—the 1980 Delta Force operation that aimed at rescuing American hostages in Tehran but resulted in a disastrous collision in the Iranian desert, killing eight American soldiers. “They said that was a pretty good idea, too,” Gates warned. He and General James Cartwright, the vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs, favored an airstrike by B-2 Spirit bombers. That option would avoid the risk of having American boots on the ground in Pakistan. But the Air Force then calculated that a payload of thirty-two smart bombs, each weighing two thousand pounds, would be required to penetrate thirty feet below ground, insuring that any bunkers would collapse. “That much ordnance going off would be the equivalent of an earthquake,” Cartwright told me. The prospect of flattening a Pakistani city made Obama pause. He shelved the B-2 option and directed McRaven to start rehearsing the raid.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2...#ixzz1tvmVVgDv